1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and a control method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there has been provided a technique enabling an information distribution apparatus to operate a setting value of an application program (hereinafter referred to as “application”) installed in a multifunction peripheral such as an image forming apparatus by using a communication protocol for a web service.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2010-198598 discusses a technique in which an information distribution apparatus transmits application setting information including a setting value of an application that is installed in a multifunction peripheral to the multifunction peripheral, and the setting value included in the application setting information can be reflected in the multifunction peripheral.
An application setting receiving module of the multifunction peripheral receives the application setting information from the information distribution apparatus, and requests the application executed by the multifunction peripheral to reflect the setting information. The requested application reflects the setting information received from the application setting receiving module to itself.
In a case where the operation target application on which the setting information is to be reflected is being executed, rewriting the setting information during the execution may have an unexpected influence on the application. Therefore, the setting information may desirably be rewritten after the application is temporarily suspended.
However, not all the applications can be suspended, and in practice, there are some applications which should not be suspended. A so-called log-in application designed for logged-in user management may be taken as an example of such an application.
The log-in application should not be suspended because the log-in application may receive an inquiry on log-in context from an application at anytime during a log-in period.
In addition, even if the application is a type of application that can be suspended, there may be a case where the application cannot be suspended when it is to be suspended because suspension thereof is unsuccessful.
If the setting information of the application is rewritten under the above-described situation, a rewriting operation of the setting information will be performed while the application is being executed. Therefore, there is a possibility that the rewriting operation thereof may have an unexpected influence on the performance of the application. Accordingly, depending on the situation, the operation for rewriting the setting information has to be executed at a limited timing so as to prevent such an unexpected influence.